A Gorgeous Shade
by AmethystWren
Summary: One-shot. Margot finally succeeds in killing her brother off. Freddie, desperate for a lead, takes her story on. Together, they create a web of lies that just might lead the FBI off the scent and save Margot from arrest. Margrounds.


**I've been meaning to write this one for a while. The idea's been bouncing around in my head and I've only just found the time and the courage to actually do something with it.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hannibal. I am sorry.**

* * *

After being rescued by the FBI following her kidnapping, Freddie Lounds was advised not to go back into journalism. Or, rather, to find a 'less dangerous alternative' or a 'more respectable career path'.

She tried. Honestly, she did. But after two months of writing articles for the local newspaper, she quickly grew bored. It takes a specific sort of talent to make something like prize-winning cauliflowers sound interesting, and sadly Freddie did not seem to possess it. Or, rather, she didn't possess the patience to find out if she did.

After two months, she was fired.

_Good riddance._ She thought to herself as she stormed home.

It was as she ate a ready-meal in front of the TV that evening that she realised she was now unemployed. A bachelorette living alone needs a job, otherwise she'll starve.

She stayed up until three am googling recent crimes on her laptop, trying to find a spin that hadn't already been taken, a story that hadn't already been told to death in the last week or so.

There wasn't one.

But Freddie Lounds was nothing if not absurdly lucky, and after a week or so, a story found her.

The minute hand of the clock had just slipped past quarter to nine when The Story knocked on her front door.

Wondering who on earth it could be (she hadn't had chance to piss anyone off recently), she got up from her rather unproductive laptop session, which seemed to have moved from googling murder cases to smiling goofily at pictures of kittens, and went to open the door.

Freddie had never met Margot Verger, but she recognised her immediately. Rumours indicated that Margot had had a rather... intimate relationship with Will Graham, and Freddie followed anything regarding the dark-haired dog lover with interest.

"Fredericka Lounds?" Margot asked.

"That's me," Freddie confirmed, stepping aside. "Come in, Miss Verger."

"You know me?" Margot looked at the redhead suspiciously. "I wasn't aware we'd had the pleasure."

"We have now." Freddie said, smiling in that sickeningly sweet manner of hers before shutting the door. "Please. Sit down."

Margot glanced at Freddie's tatty brown sofa before perching on the very edge of it. With a roll of her eyes, which she hid cleverly by ducking her head so that her curls hid her face, the Freddie sat down beside her.

"So," She said. "What brings you here?"

"They tell me you're good at telling people's stories, Miss Lounds." Margot clasped her hands in her lap, turning to look directly at Freddie.

Her eyes were a gorgeous shade of blue.

Freddie shook her head once, as though the action might dislodge the thought from her mind before it had chance to go any further.

"I want you to tell mine." Margot continued, oblivious to the little argument Freddie was having with herself over the previously thought statement.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Margot," Freddie said, hopeful that she'd finally got her mind back on track, "But I'm not sure you're the sort of person I usually write about. I mean, I'm more used to-"

"I know." Margot interrupted. "I've read your work. Very good, I have to say."

"I'm flattered. But that doesn't change the fact that-"

"I killed my brother."

Any reason Freddie had to feign disinterest in Margot's story died with that confession.

Leaning forward slightly, the redhead inclined her head slightly to the side, curious as always.

"When?" She inquired.

Margot glanced at the clock on the wall. "About fifteen minutes ago. I'm giving you a chance to cover it before anyone else even knows he's dead. Think about it. Mason Verger. _The_ Mason Verger. It'd be the story of the... Well, the year, at least. Take it or leave it."

Freddie never was one to let a good story slip through her fingers.

She took it.

* * *

They met up frequently. They had to. Freddie needed to discuss Margot's life story with her- from the abuse she endured throughout her childhood to her therapy sessions with Dr. Lecter (before his disappearance, of course)- in order to ensure she got her facts straight.

Well, mostly straight.

Their angle was that Margot was devastated, desperate to learn who murdered her big brother.

Any quotes from her that Freddie included in her articles, she made sure to follow with sentences such as 'Miss Verger said tearfully'.

When the TV news crews got wind of the Mason Verger's demise, they scrambled over each-other to interview her. She made sure to cry every single time, to choke out between sobs how her brother had been such an important part of her life.

"He was all I had left." She'd often say. "I'm all alone now."

In truth, she'd be all alone for most of her life, but they didn't need to know that.

She would not permit newspapers to interview her, telling people that Tattlecrime was covering her story wonderfully, and recommending that viewers of the TV news stations go check Freddie's website out.

The amount of hits that began flooding in astounded the journalist. She told her latest client as much, and was met with a sly smile.

In a way, it became almost like therapy for her.

Margot told Freddie everything. Freddie then whittled it down, omitting the incriminating details, tweaking other parts, until it really did seem that Margot was the victim and not the one at fault.

Listening to Margot's tales of her childhood, of the things her brother used to do to her, Freddie was actually starting to believe that he had it coming, and that Margot had done the right thing in bumping him off regardless of what the law said.

One of the stable hands- Jake Timms- was eventually convicted of the murder. He swore he was innocent, but somehow all the evidence seemed to point to him.

Margot had got away with it.

After their final article, in which Freddie expressed Margot's 'great relief' at her brother's murderer finally being behind bars, the two women had absolutely no reason to continue their sessions.

They did anyway.

"I think I like someone." Margot confessed at one such meeting.

Freddie raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? Anyone I know?"

Margot laughed. "You know them alright."

Intrigued, Freddie leaned forward slightly. "Who is it?"

Margot leaned forwards too, her knees resting on her lap, her face only inches away from Freddie's. When she spoke, her voice was no louder than a whisper, and her breath tickled Freddie's skin. "Guess."

Her eyes were still a gorgeous shade of blue.

Freddie swallowed and wondered what she would do if Margot was a mind-reader.

"No idea." She replied, her voice quieter than she usually liked it to be.

"I'll give you a clue." Margot promised, closing the distance between them and capturing Freddie's lips with her own.

* * *

**Sorry the ending's a bit cheesy! Hopefully you're too busy suffocating on the adorable fluffiness to care too much ^.^**


End file.
